Linguistic biases and the establishment of conceptual hierarchies: Evidence from preschool children* 1 (original) (raw)
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Nouns Mark Category Relations: Toddlers' and Preschoolers' Word-Learning Biases
Child Development, 1990
Recent research suggests that preschool children approach the task of word leaming equipped with implicit biases that lead them to prefer some possible meanings over others. The noun-category bias proposes that children favor category relations when interpreting the meaning of novel nouns. In the series of experiments reported here, we develop a stringent test of the noun-category bias and reveal that it is present in children as young as 2 years of age. In each experiment, children participated in a 5-item match-to-sample task. Children were presented with a target item (e.g., a cow) and 4 choices, 2 of which belonged to the same superordinate category as the target (e.g., a fox and a zebra) and 2 of which were thematically related to the target (e.g., milk and a bam). In Experiment 1 we demonstrate that novel nouns prompt preschool children to attend to superordinate-level category relations, even in the presence of multiple thematic alternatives. In Experiment 2, we ascertain that the bias is specific to nouns; novel adjectives do not highlight superordinate category relations. In Experiment 3, we demonstrate the noun-category bias in 2-year-olds. The nature and utility of the noun-category bias are discussed.
2002
Perhaps more than any other developmental achievement, word-learning stands at the very intersection of language and cognition. Early word-learning represents infants' entrance into a truly symbolic system and brings with it a means to establish reference. To succeed, infants must identify the relevant linguistic units, identify their corresponding concepts, and establish a mapping between the two. But how do infants begin to map words to concepts, and thus establish their meaning? How do they discover that different types of words (e.g., "dog" (noun), "fluffy" (adjective), "begging" (verb) refer to different aspects of the same scene (e.g, a standard poodle, seated on its hind legs and holding its front paws in the air)? We have proposed that infants begin the task of word-learning with a broad, universal expectation linking novel words to a broad range of commonalities, and that this initial expectation is subsequently fine-tuned on the basis of their experience with the objects and events they encounter and the native language under acquisition. In this chapter, we examine this proposal, in light of recent evidence with infants and young children. Introduction Infants across the world's communities are exposed to vastly different experiences. Consider, for example, one infant being raised in a remote region of the Guatemalan rainforest, another growing up in the mountains of rural Switzerland, and a third being raised in Brooklyn, NY. Each infant will live in a world that is unimaginable to the other, surrounded by objects and events that are foreign to the other, and immersed in a language that the other cannot begin to understand. Yet despite these vast Early word learning 2 differences in experience, infants across the world display striking similarities in the most fundamental aspects of their conceptual and language development. Within the first year of life, each of these infants will begin to establish systematic links between words and the concepts to which they refer. On the conceptual side, they will begin to form categories of objects that capture both the similarities and differences among the objects they encounter. Most of these early object categories will be at the basic level (i.e., dog) and the more inclusive global level (i.e., animal). Infants will begin to use these early object categories as an inductive base to support inferences about new objects that they encounter. They will also begin to relate categories to one another, implicitly, on the basis of taxonomic (e.g., dogs are a kind of animal), thematic (e.g., dogs chase tennis balls), functional (e.g., dogs can pull children on sleds) and other relations. Infants' early object and event categories will provide a core of conceptual continuity from infancy through adulthood. Concurrent with these conceptual advances, infants in each community will make remarkably rapid strides in language acquisition. Even before they begin to understand the words of their native language, infants show a special interest in the sounds of language. Newborns respond to the emotional tone carried by the melody of human speech (Fernald, 1992a, b), and prefer speech sounds to other
2007
Perhaps more than any other developmental achievement, word-learning stands at the very intersection of language and cognition. Early word-learning represents infants' entrance into a truly symbolic system and brings with it a means to establish reference. To succeed, infants must identify the relevant linguistic units, identify their corresponding concepts, and establish a mapping between the two. But how do infants begin to map words to concepts, and thus establish their meaning? How do they discover that different types of words (e.g., "dog" (noun), "fluffy" (adjective), "begging" (verb) refer to different aspects of the same scene (e.g, a standard poodle, seated on its hind legs and holding its front paws in the air)? We have proposed that infants begin the task of word-learning with a broad, universal expectation linking novel words to a broad range of commonalities, and that this initial expectation is subsequently fine-tuned on the basis of their experience with the objects and events they encounter and the native language under acquisition. In this chapter, we examine this proposal, in light of recent evidence with infants and young children. Introduction Infants across the world's communities are exposed to vastly different experiences. Consider, for example, one infant being raised in a remote region of the Guatemalan rainforest, another growing up in the mountains of rural Switzerland, and a third being raised in Brooklyn, NY. Each infant will live in a world that is unimaginable to the other, surrounded by objects and events that are foreign to the other, and immersed in a language that the other cannot begin to understand. Yet despite these vast Early word learning 2 differences in experience, infants across the world display striking similarities in the most fundamental aspects of their conceptual and language development. Within the first year of life, each of these infants will begin to establish systematic links between words and the concepts to which they refer. On the conceptual side, they will begin to form categories of objects that capture both the similarities and differences among the objects they encounter. Most of these early object categories will be at the basic level (i.e., dog) and the more inclusive global level (i.e., animal). Infants will begin to use these early object categories as an inductive base to support inferences about new objects that they encounter. They will also begin to relate categories to one another, implicitly, on the basis of taxonomic (e.g., dogs are a kind of animal), thematic (e.g., dogs chase tennis balls), functional (e.g., dogs can pull children on sleds) and other relations. Infants' early object and event categories will provide a core of conceptual continuity from infancy through adulthood. Concurrent with these conceptual advances, infants in each community will make remarkably rapid strides in language acquisition. Even before they begin to understand the words of their native language, infants show a special interest in the sounds of language. Newborns respond to the emotional tone carried by the melody of human speech (Fernald, 1992a, b), and prefer speech sounds to other
Language Learning and Development, 2012
Although there is considerable evidence that nouns highlight category-based commonalities, including both those that are perceptually available and those that reflect underlying conceptual similarity, some have claimed that words function merely as features of objects. Here, we directly test these alternative accounts. Four-year-olds (n = 140) were introduced to two different novel animals that were highlighted with nouns, adjectives, or stickers. Children heard a nonobvious novel property applied to the first animal and were asked whether this property applied to other animals that filled the similarity space between the original two animals. When the two animals were named with the same noun, children extended the property broadly throughout the similarity space. When the animals were marked with adjectives or stickers, children adopted a similarity-based pattern. These findings demonstrate clearly that nouns exert a unique effect on categorization-they promote category formation and engage conceptual reasoning beyond perceptual similarity alone.
Child Development, 1993
Recent research suggests that, although young cbildren appreciate many different kinds oi conceptual relations among objects, they iocns specifically on taxonomic relations in the context oi word learning. However, hecanse the evidence lor children's appreciation of tbis linkage between words and object categories has come primarily from children wbo have made suhstantial linguistic and conceptual advances, it offers limited information concerning the development of this linkage. In the experiments reported bere, we employ a match-to-sample task to iocns speciircally on tbe development of an appreciation oi the linkage between words (here, connt noims) and object categories in iniants in the period just prior to and just subsequent to the naming explosion. The results demonstrate that, for 21-monthold infants, most of whom have recently entered tbe socahulary explosion (Experiment 1), and for 16-montb-old infants, most of wbom bave yet to commence tbe vocabulary explosion (Experiment 2), novel nouns focus attention on taxonomic relations among objects. Tbis is important because it reveals a nascent appreciation oi a linkage between words and object categories in infants wbo are at tbe very onset of language production. Results are interpreted within a developmental accovmt of infants' emerging appreciation oi a specific linkage between count nouns and object categories.
Children's sensitivity to constraints on word meaning: Taxonomic versus thematic relations
Cognitive Psychology, 1984
A major problem in language learning is to figure out the meaning of a word given the enormous number of possible meanings for any particular word. This problem is exacerbated for children because they often find thematic relations between objects to be more salient than the objects' taxonomic category. Yet most single nouns refer to object categories and not to thematic relations. How do children learn words referring to categories when they find thematic relations so salient? We propose that children limit the possible meanings of nouns to refer mainly to categorical relations. This hypothesis was tested in four studies. In each study, preschool children saw a series of target objects (e.g., dog), each followed by a thematic associate (e.g., bone) and a taxonomic associate (e.g., cat). When children were told to choose another object that was similar to the target ("See this? Find another one."), they as usual often selected the thematic associate. In contrast, when the instructions included an unknown word for the target ("See this fep? Find another fep."), children now preferred the taxonomic associate. This finding held up for 2-and 3-year-olds at the basic level of categorization, for 4-and 5-year-olds at the superordinate level of categorization, and 4-and S-year-olds who were taught new taxonomic and new thematic relations for unfamiliar objects. In each case, children constrained the meaning of new nouns to refer mainly to categorical relations. By limiting the hypotheses that children need to consider, this constraint tremendously simplifies the problem of language learning.
Category development in early language
Journal of Child Language, 1981
Developing knowledge of the vehicle, animal, and fruit categories was traced in six children from I; 0 to I; 8. Data from mothers' language diaries and from bi-monthly sessions with the children were pooled to analyse the growth, content, and internal structure of the three categories over time. The c\lildren developed some grasp of most of the focal concepts in each category,' but they made fewer differentiations than adults do. Overextension of a single con cept term to encompass a cluster of related referents was common. The frequent discrepancies between comprehension and production of concept terms highlighted the importance of examining both modes. The data showed marked individual differences in style of category acquisition.
Developmental Psychology, 1995
If young children approached the task of word learning with a specific hypothesis about the meaning of novel count nouns, they could make the problem of word learning more tractable. Six experiments were conducted to test children's hypotheses about how labels map to object categories. Findings indicated that (a) 3-and 4-year-olds function with an antithematic bias; (b) children do not reliably extend novel nouns to superordinate exemplars when perceptual similarity is controlled until approximately age 7; and (c) children expect novel nouns to label taxonomic categories at the basic level, even in the presence of a perceptually compelling distractor. Results are interpreted as supporting the principle of categorical scope (R. M. Golinkoff, C. B. Mervis, & K. Hirsh-Pasek, 1994).